If it’s Crazy, I Don’t Wanna Be Sane: Just Me and My 2 to Disney-June 2012 PTR

[Tink-erin-belle]

I’ve been MIA from the boards and I missed A LOT of your PTR! First of all, this is gorgeous:

It will be perfect for ‘Ohana! I don’t know how I missed that the last time I read your PTR! I hope you get a nice family picture that night

On a more serious note, I was touched by your story about the mother on etsy. That was really sweet that she gave your daughter the skirt, and it was wonderful that you were able to direct some donations to her charity Your touring plans look great! Your pictures from Akershus from last year are really nice! That is some fantastic princess interaction! Your daughter looks so pretty in that dress and your son is adorable in that lipstick mark picture! Akershus is a definite must do for my next trip.

I have very little room for error here as the only adult. And sometimes it stinks not having a safety net when things happen, but I can appreciate being able to make the decision that was best for us.

As you know from my PTR, I wholeheartedly understand this! I am so glad that you were able to rearrange the plans a bit and still keep your trip intact! Your daughter’s reaction is priceless, "okay, can we watch TV now?" Nothing like a kid to help keep everything in perspective! I love your t-shirts! They are all so cute! I’m glad you found a solution for your daughter’s BBB dress! Don’t kids always seem to have growth spurts at the most inopportune times? I’m fairly tall and my ex-husband is 6’4” so my kids seem to always have growth spurts. If it’s not one, it is the other. T-shirts that I brought for my son in January looked like they belonged to a 10 year old by the end of the school year! My daughter was wearing a size 8 shoe last year and now she can almost fit into my shoes – I wear a size 10!

for online check in!!! You are just days away from your trip now! If I don’t get a chance to DIS before you go, I hope you and your kids have a wonderful trip!

 

[luvmy2babies]

I’ve been MIA from the boards and I missed A LOT of your PTR! First of all, this is gorgeous:

It will be perfect for ‘Ohana! I don’t know how I missed that the last time I read your PTR! I hope you get a nice family picture that night

On a more serious note, I was touched by your story about the mother on etsy. That was really sweet that she gave your daughter the skirt, and it was wonderful that you were able to direct some donations to her charity Your touring plans look great! Your pictures from Akershus from last year are really nice! That is some fantastic princess interaction! Your daughter looks so pretty in that dress and your son is adorable in that lipstick mark picture! Akershus is a definite must do for my next trip.

As you know from my PTR, I wholeheartedly understand this! I am so glad that you were able to rearrange the plans a bit and still keep your trip intact! Your daughter’s reaction is priceless, "okay, can we watch TV now?" Nothing like a kid to help keep everything in perspective! I love your t-shirts! They are all so cute! I’m glad you found a solution for your daughter’s BBB dress! Don’t kids always seem to have growth spurts at the most inopportune times? I’m fairly tall and my ex-husband is 6’4” so my kids seem to always have growth spurts. If it’s not one, it is the other. T-shirts that I brought for my son in January looked like they belonged to a 10 year old by the end of the school year! My daughter was wearing a size 8 shoe last year and now she can almost fit into my shoes – I wear a size 10!

for online check in!!! You are just days away from your trip now! If I don’t get a chance to DIS before you go, I hope you and your kids have a wonderful trip!

Thanks for checking in and getting caught up. This morning my daughter got up while I was downstairs giving ds breakfast. I heard a squeal, then another longer squeal. Then I heard running footsteps. I thought she'd seen a spider. I asked her what was going on. Her response: "Four days!"



I hope you and your children have a wonderful summer and that your new job is going well.

 

[luvmy2babies]

Well, it has to come at some point unfortunately. Here is the post about day nine, our final park day.

We’ll return to finish up our Safari activities.

I hope we can get there for rope drop since we have a dinner ADR that evening. Here are our goals for the day.
Oasis in case we didn’t get it done on the first day
Camp Minnie Mickey
Asia trail
Flights of Wonder
Take the train to Rafiki’s Planet Watch
Conservation station
Habitat Habitat
Return Train
Festival of the Lion King

Flights of Wonder will be new to us and we’ll try to get more out of the Asia trail this time as well. Camp Minnie Mickey will also be new to us, but meeting Pocahantas won’t be. We met her at Rafiki’s planet watch the last time.

I think dd could have spent all day Rafiki’s planet watch or conservation station.

Also got this there. Really glad I did now even though after it was over, dd asked me, “Who is Jiminy Cricket, mom?”

And we loved Festival of the Lion King.

We’ll have an early lunch somewhere. I haven’t decided where yet. My plan is a light breakfast from our hotel room food, so I’m sure we’ll be hungry. I want to eat early so ds can nap. We have special dinner plans.

My plan is to be done at the park by 1:00 to give us time to go back to the resort to rest, clean up and change. I figure we need to be at the bus stop at All-Star Movies by 4:30 to get the bus to MK. I’ll decide when we get there if we’ll walk or go up to the monorail. Last time we did this, a quick survey of the landscape led me to conclude it would be quicker to walk. All-Star Movies is the last bus stop.

We had breakfast at Chef Mickey’s the first time. It was a lot of fun.

Since we will have gotten up pretty early, we’ll head back to the resort to relax. Not definite on what that will entail right now. Maybe some time in the arcade before bed. Eventually I’ll have to pack up and get us ready to go.

 

[luvmy2babies]

We’ll wake up when we wake up the next day, get dressed, check our luggage at RAC, and spend our last CS credits at the food court. Check out is at 11:00 and Magical Express should be around noon for our 3:30 flight. We’ll probably finish up with some arcade time or shopping in the resort gift shop.

I’m sure it will seem as if it went by way too fast. It did the last time. But I got one of the sweetest pictures on the bus back to the airport.

I have a couple more posts to make. I have finished the last of the t-shirts and packed everything that is going that we won't need in the next couple of days. I put the character meal autograph pages into photo albums I found at the dollar store. I just have to punch holes in the memory book pages and put them into some notebooks I had left over from other projects. I have one last load of laundry going so we'll have some clean clothes when we come home.

The weather report is looking really good. Mostly sunny days with 20%, 30% or 40% chance of rain. Ds' rain gear is all we don't have, but I got 2 day free shipping on his rain coat and the cover for his stroller and will have them both by Wednesday.

Our big vacation is almost here.

 

[Zuzu03]

Oh my goodness, you must be so excited!!!! You're so close! I can barely contain myself and DD has one more day at work to get through, poor thing. She's literally counting the hours. She does data entry so she can listen to her Ipod and she's been passing the time listening to the Dis podcasts.

I love all of the pictures of the little ones! Too cute your DD asking who Jiminy Cricket is! LOL!!! We haven't been to Chef Mickey's yet, it's on our to do list, but unfortunately, not this time! Yes, I think the weather should be fine when we're there - hope so!!!

 

[luvmy2babies]

Oh my goodness, you must be so excited!!!! You're so close! I can barely contain myself and DD has one more day at work to get through, poor thing. She's literally counting the hours. She does data entry so she can listen to her Ipod and she's been passing the time listening to the Dis podcasts.

I love all of the pictures of the little ones! Too cute your DD asking who Jiminy Cricket is! LOL!!! We haven't been to Chef Mickey's yet, it's on our to do list, but unfortunately, not this time! Yes, I think the weather should be fine when we're there - hope so!!!

Yes, we are very excited. I have today and tomorrow to work though. I got a scare this morning. I overslept. Ds actually was in bed with me and woke up probably on time, but I turned the TV on for him and laid back down, not realizing I had turned my alarm off the previous morning to disable the snooze alarm. Usually he persists in getting me up, but he picked today to sit quietly and watch Disney Junior. I opened my eyes to find way more sunshine coming in through the window for it to be 5:30am. It was 6:15. Somehow we still got out of the house by 6:50. I’ll have my phone set for back-up to get me up on Thursday morning for sure.

Right now, I’m in the usual “please don’t let me forget anything I can’t replace” frame of mind. I’ve probably been over my check lists 4 times. I’ve held out on packing dd’s princess dress so it is not stuffed in the suitcase any longer than necessary, but it’s going in tonight.

Yeah, I’m hoping for good weather. I really felt for the people who were there when that system was just sitting over Florida and it was raining for hours and hours every day. A couple of the days did go back up to a 60% chance of rain, but I am hoping it will be the normal Florida showers you expect in the summer.

You and your dd leave tomorrow. In case I don’t get to say it, safe travels and we’ll probably see you Saturday waiting at CP

 

[Zuzu03]

Yes, we are very excited. I have today and tomorrow to work though. I got a scare this morning. I overslept. Ds actually was in bed with me and woke up probably on time, but I turned the TV on for him and laid back down, not realizing I had turned my alarm off the previous morning to disable the snooze alarm. Usually he persists in getting me up, but he picked today to sit quietly and watch Disney Junior. I opened my eyes to find way more sunshine coming in through the window for it to be 5:30am. It was 6:15. Somehow we still got out of the house by 6:50. I’ll have my phone set for back-up to get me up on Thursday morning for sure.

Right now, I’m in the usual “please don’t let me forget anything I can’t replace” frame of mind. I’ve probably been over my check lists 4 times. I’ve held out on packing dd’s princess dress so it is not stuffed in the suitcase any longer than necessary, but it’s going in tonight.

Yeah, I’m hoping for good weather. I really felt for the people who were there when that system was just sitting over Florida and it was raining for hours and hours every day. A couple of the days did go back up to a 60% chance of rain, but I am hoping it will be the normal Florida showers you expect in the summer.

You and your dd leave tomorrow. In case I don’t get to say it, safe travels and we’ll probably see you Saturday waiting at CP

Oh my goodness, I hate oversleeping! That's amazing that you got out of the house in 35 minutes! I think I'd better set about five alarms for tomorrow morning to wake me up at 3:00 - just in case!

I'm in the same mode about making sure I've packed EVERYTHING we could possible need in the next 6 days. Probably way overpacked, but it's nice to have options!

I know, the weather last week and the week before was crappy - it's awful when you plan and plan for your vacation and the weather just doesn't cooperate! I'm thinking you're right - that we'll have the normal afternoon deluge then it'll clear up. Hope so!!!

And thank you!!!! I hope you and your little ones have a safe trip down too and we hope to see you! Have a great time!!!

 

[taymorel]

I am so late to your report,but I totally loved it. You gave me some great ideas.

 

[lbuzz52]

I have felt so much better since making it too. I think it was when I was considering switching to the QS dining plan therefore cancelling all of our TS meals and cancelling dd’s BBB appointment that it hit me we should just stay somewhere else. That is the option that basically changes nothing about the trip itself except the transportation options available to us.

Had I not made the decision when I did, it still might not have worked due to the ticket price increase. I was reading on here about people buying tickets for trips 6 months to over a year away to avoid the increase and here I was stressing over getting the tickets for our trip around the corner. Now I can just do our normal vacation preparation routine with the knowledge everything is taken care of on that end.

The CM even said it. I guess she could hear the stress in my voice when I called. She said, “Well, now everything is taken care of and you and your children can relax and enjoy your vacation.” And really that is one of the things I have come to love about prepaid vacations. I never do what you call “breaking the bank”. I don’t even crack it. I like to be able to pay everybody that needs to be paid before I leave and easily pay everybody that needs to be paid when I get home. I don’t like to go away unless I can leave my bill money alone and have a cushion. It was a bit sad for me as we have been planning and looking forward to this for so long to not have joy in the process at this point.

I was thinking back to those carefree shopping trips we have right before we go away (1 before every trip) where we are picking up little $1 odds and ends so we can finish packing and how exciting it is for dd and me. Dd likes to make a game to see if the travel toiletry section will have our brand of whatever we need, stuff like that. Preparation had lost its luster in the last 3 weeks. I was supposed to finish the printed projects and the shirts in May, but my printed projects were not done. I had not printed the MK section of my journal and the coloring sheets I downloaded for dd were still in the file. I had not even started on the shirts. Since Saturday, I finished printing the activity books and my journal. Only thing left is binding.

I also did most of our shirts. We have mostly white ones, but we have a few colored ones. On Saturday, I picked up the light transfer paper (cheaper than the dark, but you have to flip your designs on the computer before printing). On Sunday, I flipped and printed all of the images for the white shirts and last night I ironed on the transfers while we watched Beauty and the Beast, which was showing on Disney channel. Ds had fun looking at the pictures naming characters and dd had fun peeling off the transfer paper once the shirt cooled down. For the most part, they turned out great. I do need to redo one of dd’s where part of the picture peeled, but out of all of the ones I did, that’s really good. I’ll probably post the pictures tomorrow night.

I know now if I have it to do over, as in a longer trip to plan, I will choose either a moderate or a value resort from the beginning. I think I will only try to do a deluxe resort if the trip is less than 5 days. Truth be told, I had often even before I started having issues, wondered if I should have chosen your old stomping ground and booked CBR for this trip. It looked like so much fun in your report. We’ll have plenty of fun at All-Star Movies. I know the children will love the pool. Dd asked me to try to get us into the Toy Story section. I told her I would try, but if not, we could still go over and see it like the last time.

SINGLE DIGIT DANCE!!!!








After we left home this morning and got to the first stop light on the way to my daughter’s summer camp, I said, “Guess what.” She immediately said, “Nine days.”

I started dancing at the stop light singing “Single digit dance…yeah, single digit dance!” She joined in and danced a little. Ds started doing a little dance in his seat and laughing.

Yeah, we’re crazy. We need a vacation.

that'a not crazy at all! i do it too!


hope you are loving your resort and having a great time!

 

[luvmy2babies]

I am so late to your report,but I totally loved it. You gave me some great ideas.

Great to have you. We are back and had a wonderful time. I will start my TR soon. Hope to see you there.

 

[luvmy2babies]

that'a not crazy at all! i do it too!


hope you are loving your resort and having a great time!

Well, the crew is back in town. Missing only World Showcase in Epcot (due to weather) and FOTLK and Asia in AK due to time constraints, I'd say we did pretty well.

And yes, All-Star Movies was great and (something I didn't know until a few days before we left), had been refurbished.

I'm still going through my pictures. I took less than I anticipated probably due to the rain, but still about 500. And I'm going through the photopass ones and adding boarders. I prepaid for it, so I'm going to have fun playing with it. I was thinking about a title for my TR.

 

[luvmy2babies]

We're back.

Despite Debbie's antics it was a great vacation. We took her on and won I think. Out of all we had planned, Debbie only removed touring World Showcase from the schedule. And truth be told we probably could have still done it, but ended up reworking the plan so that our 2nd Epcot day could be shorter and we'd get in the most important goals we had there.

We also missed out on Festival of the Lion King and Asia in AK due to time constraints. In hindsight, we probably should have stayed longer on our first AK day, but we left the park around 1pm. After days of Debbie's rain, the sunshine that came in about an hour into our touring that day kind of wiped us out a bit, so we vacated for the pool. We made all of our ADRs and I learned a lot like I do every trip.

I'm happy to say, despite sloshing around in rain water and eating several buffets, we all remained healthy throughout the trip and are healthy still. Physically the worst thing to happen was ds scraping his knee running from dd. There were meltdowns, and a few moments of discouragement of course. We were still the same people we are at home and you can't go 10 days without some of that, but the laughs and happy moments far far outweighed the down moments.

I want to thank everyone who followed my PTR, whether you posted constantly or just once or only lurked on it. I'm still going through my photos and the photopass photos and trying to decide on a name for my TR, but I hope to see everyone there once I start it.

 

[Tink-erin-belle]

I'm happy that you had such a great trip and I'm excited to hear all about it!